no one knew me, look right through me
by unperfectwolf
Summary: no one knew me, look right through me the dreams in which i'm dying are the best i've ever had -- There are some things the kids at Stanford knew about Sam Winchester, and some they didn't.


**no one knew me, look right through me (the dreams in which i'm dying are the best i've ever had)  
By** unperfectwolf  
**Rated:** pg  
**Fandom, Pairing:** Supernatural, Gen: Sam Winchester  
**Summary:** There are some things the kids at Stanford knew about Sam Winchester, and some they didn't.  
**Disclaimer:** not mine, never was mine, never will be mine.  
**Word Count: ** 1600  
**Authors Notes: ** inspired by a lot of fic that's out there. because sam was gone for four years, and even he's not that good of actor. title and lyrics from the song "mad world" by tears for fears (known more recently as performed by gary jules).

**no one knew me, look right through me **

**(the dreams in which i'm dying are the best i've ever had)  
**

_went to school and i was very nervous  
no one knew me, no one knew me  
hello teacher tell me what's my lesson  
look right through me, look right through me_

- tears for fears

Sam Winchester was an unknown quantity to most of Stanford's students. He called everyone older than him Sir or Ma'am and his automatic response to any kind of command a quickly snapped "Yes, Sir" or "Yes, Ma'am", regardless of how he was actually going to react. He never talked back, even if it was obvious he knew far more than anyone else on whatever subject had come up, and he always tipped well.

He was smart, even when being compared to other Stanford students. It didn't take long for the fact that he'd gotten a full ride to the school to get out, which caused no end of speculation. Not long after that fact had made its rounds, so had the fact that he'd had near to perfect as you get SAT scores. Few people ever learned had had 11 different high schools on his transcripts, however, but there was speculation on where he got his accent from.

Most people figured him for an Army brat, though he always froze up when anyone tried to call him out on it, so after a while they'd figured they were wrong. Eventually they got it out of him that his dad was an ex-Marine, but no one was ever privy to the information of what his dad did for a living now.

Sam Winchester could play basket ball with talent, but little skill. He was the best person to have on your team in a football game, since he could seem to dodge just about anyone. He loved soccer more than any other sport, but rarely played a game. He could take just about anyone in street hockey, and was good enough at ice hockey. The only sport he never played was baseball.

He knew how to cook, something that came out in a round about way including a friends broken ankle and a rotation of people helping take care of him. He knew more ghost stories than anyone had the right to, and could read a person in about two seconds flat, something that was more than a little disconcerting for a lot of the people he met.

In his sophomore year, his friend Zack decided to have his birthday in a tavern on the out skirts of town. No one in their group went there much – just once or twice when they ended up out that way – but Zack had recently stumbled upon it and had seemingly fallen in love.

When the group of them entered, the bartender greeted Sam by name and some of the people around the room raised their glasses in greeting. His friends had raised eyebrows, but hadn't asked.

Several hours and more than as many beers apiece later, the bartender had leaned across the bar and said something low to Sam. Sam had shaken his head, not saying anything back. After a few moments though, he'd sighed. "Fine, but you owe me a beer."

The bartender had nodded. "Sure, fine, just get him gone."

A place like this, it didn't have bouncers. It had a bartender and regulars and community that kept it safe. It had people knowing other people's life stories and knowing phone numbers off the top of their heads and who's girl to call and when. And this place, this place had Sam Winchester apparently.

He stood, walked across the room to the other end of the bar and stood a guy up and on his feet. The guy and his two friends had protested, but the bartender had talked fast. One of the friends had nodded, slowly, drunkenly, but the other two had just protested some more. Sam had sighed again.

Once the other two had started swinging, it only took Sam a moment to put the guys down and out. He hadn't even flinched as his knuckles had caught the first guy on the cheek, even though those who were watching had.

Then the three were gone and Sam had come back over and sat down. His friends had blinked, one opening his mouth to say something, but they never did.

Two weeks later and the whole school knew Sam was the one you wanted with you in a fight.

It wasn't too long after that when they were back. Some guy, just passing through, had hustled a local for his money. Everyone knew Sam didn't give a damn about that – he was big on the 'reap what you sow' philosophy. He did, apparently, have issues with someone who was from out of town walking away with all that money though.

It didn't take him long before the other guy was running and Sam was pocketing a hefty chunk of change. When he sat back down the bartender had only shaken his head with a grin, sliding a beer across the bar to him. One of the regulars in the back had hollered out a question about if it was for books or food this time, and Sam had laughingly called back both.

None of his friends knew the only reason Sam hadn't had to turn tail and run home the first couple of semesters was because he'd been able to hustle anyone he came across in pool, poker, or in their choice of game. Some of them wondered about it, after the comment, wondered just how tight things had been for Sam, but none of them asked and none of them would have found out even if they had.

His first roommate had never really noticed the weird idiosyncrasies that Sam had, nor had his second. Neither had noticed the same ones – one had noticed Sam had a weird collection of dried herbs, and that he obviously knew something about them. The other noticed he could speak Latin fairly well, and often recited things he really needed to remember in it. The first noticed his inability to sleep if anyone else in the room was moving, and that he could wake up at a set time with no alarm clock needed. The second one noticed the runes that popped up in weird places, but passed it off as superstitions garnered from history and mythology classes.

Jess noticed a little of it all, but she never said anything because before she could she found the gun that Sam kept hidden between the mattress and the box spring on his side of the bed.

They all noticed the salt, at one point or another, but never took the time to compare his excuses.

Jess and Sam had been living together for a couple of months when he and the guys were out late at night. A group of guys had peeled off from the shadows and started following them, something Sam had noticed right away, though the other guys wouldn't realize it until later.

By the time the five guys had caught up to their smaller group, Sam was behind the others. Once they'd traded barbs for a few minutes, working up to the confrontation, Sam had already known how it was going to end. When two of the others had pulled guns, Sam had a knife out and one of the attackers in his grip, blade to his throat. The others had frozen, not expecting half drunk guys to have any sort of defense.

Sam hadn't used his knife, and had managed to disarm the other guys with out much hassle or exertion. Sam never answered one question about why he carried a knife – or where he'd gotten such a wicked looking one – but after that, they all knew he had one on him almost all the time.

There was also the time in his junior year that one of the kids in his chem class had done something stupid that had resulted in a dropped beaker of acid. The acid and the shattered glass went all over, catching the kids arms and face and anything that wasn't covered. Before anyone else it the class had time to think about how to react, Sam had moved to help him. By the time the paramedics arrived, the kid was nearly fine. All of the glass had been removed from him and all of the acid had been washed off. Sam had done everything he should have, but nothing by the book.

No one said anything much then, but talk started after he'd managed to patch someone up from a knife wound six months later, getting high praise from the paramedics.

No one knew much about Sam Winchester. They knew little bits and pieces, like that he ran every morning and worked out every evening, though never in a gym. They knew he ate like it was his last meal all the time and that he had scars in the weirdest shapes with no tale to go along with nearly any of them.

They knew he could hustle pool when he wanted to, and that he made friends with some of the most unusual people. They knew that if you went outside of the college part of the town, the lower middle class, that a lot of the people there knew Sam from the bars and taverns he'd gone to in his earlier years to hustle pool. They knew that he wasn't above doing the dirty work, and that he knew how to fight.

Some of them knew about the guns and the knives and his weird little habits that he mostly kept secret. Some of them knew about the schools.

But the one thing that none of them knew jack shit about his brother Dean.


End file.
